Alien

*This transcript is produced using transcription software and reviewed for quality. Despite our best efforts, some passages may be incomplete or contain errors due to audio quality or software limitations.*

Pete Wright:
I noticed you were doing a little typing.

Andy Nelson:
I did. I was typing. I was.

Pete Wright:
What were you working? Were you? Were you working on a budget?

Andy Nelson:
No. I’m actually working on the show.

Pete Wright:
Like this show? The show we

Andy Nelson:
I’m writing things down that I forgot to write down. I’m like, oh, I gotta write that down.

Pete Wright:
That’s fantastic.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah.

Pete Wright:
Alright. Well, we should talk about welcome to the show, Andy.

Andy Nelson:
Welcome to the end

Pete Wright:
the Who are you tonight? Because this has been kind of a big day for you. You’ve been acquiring new properties.

Andy Nelson:
I have. So I’m no longer the movie monkey. I finally am bidding it adieu.

Pete Wright:
Good riddance to bad rubbish, I say.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. The movie monkey can keep it, if he if he pays me.

Pete Wright:
That’s the truth. I should follow you now, because I wasn’t, you already have a 114 followers. Oh, you just changed your name.

Andy Nelson:
On on what? Twitter?

Pete Wright:
On the Twitter. Yeah.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. So I’m now Soda Creek Film.

Pete Wright:
Soda Creek Film. Is that actually a picture of Soda Creek?

Andy Nelson:
That is, actually.

Pete Wright:
Is that kind of a is that kind of a I Is that a bridge?

Andy Nelson:
Is that under a It is it is a bridge. I innertubed under that bridge countless times.

Pete Wright:
Was it safe?

Andy Nelson:
It’s it’s kind of

Pete Wright:
a small picture, but I wonder are there oh, it’s it’s prettier than I thought. I thought there might have been some hypodermic needles or something. It’s very pretty.

Andy Nelson:
It’s not that quite ghetto. Thank you for painting my my childhood.

Pete Wright:
I just did it. I totally ruined your childhood. I’m sorry about that.

Andy Nelson:
That’s where the that’s where the needles were.

Pete Wright:
I found my first dead body under that bridge.

Andy Nelson:
-huh. And then I wrote a book about it.

Pete Wright:
You you grew you grew up in a lovely place. I should say that.

Andy Nelson:
Under the bridge.

Pete Wright:
Under the bridge. That was totally not me. That was on you, my friend. That was a that was was that a that was a compla slam that just happened there. It was like a it was like a boom accomplish slam.

Andy Nelson:
It’s it was I couldn’t not do it even though, to me, I had to do it. It was too easy. I set myself up. What can I say?

Pete Wright:
Soda Creek Film. So you are Soda Creek Film after the lovely Soda Creek, and so that’s gonna be you everywhere.

Andy Nelson:
That’s me on Facebook. That’s me on Twitter.

Pete Wright:
K.

Andy Nelson:
And I don’t think I can set that up on g Gmail.

Pete Wright:
Not yet. Not yet. Yeah.

Andy Nelson:
But I do have Soda Creek oh, I haven’t set that up yet, though, so I don’t know.

Pete Wright:
Actually, Soda Creek Film dot com?

Andy Nelson:
So no. Well, yes. I do have soda creek film dot com and sodacreekfilm@gmail.com, and I kinda went a little crazy today.

Pete Wright:
You did. This was a big day. Congratulations, and and welcome to, the Internet, and your big boy pants.

Andy Nelson:
I feel all grown up now.

Pete Wright:
You do. You should. This is good. I wish there was a I’m gonna make you a certificate.

Andy Nelson:
Between that and getting an iPhone today is

Pete Wright:
a That was a fun big day. Yeah.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. I did get my big boy pants today.

Pete Wright:
You really did. Oh, yeah. That’s good. That’s good.

Andy Nelson:
Well, let’s yeah. Anyway

Pete Wright:
We have some other things to talk about. We you wanted to talk about some trailers. I wanna talk about some trailers.

Andy Nelson:
Do wanna talk about Stitcher first?

Pete Wright:
Yeah. Sure. Stitcher, I we got all sorts of things I should talk about. First of all, if you are so interested, you can find me at Pete Wright on the Twitter or at rashpixel.com. Rashpixel.tv is where you’ll find all the shows, the other rashpixel.tv shows, and you can subscribe to them in iTunes.

We sure appreciate it if you do that. ITunes is great way to keep up with all of the free shows that you might subscribe to through the iTunes Podcast gallery there. But you can subscribe using any one of your favorite pod catching apps right through rashpixel.tv. The other is Stitcher smart radio. It’s a great way to do smart radio right from an app on your phone.

So in the Android app store, the iOS app store, can download Stitcher and subscribe to any of the rashpixel.tv shows right there, and and it works really, really well. There are all sorts of other shows. Vastly more popular shows as well. We appreciate it if you subscribe to ours first and then the more popular shows. Yes.

Whatever order works for you. Really, it’s you. This is you. So that’s that. Now, let’s talk about what we want to talk about tonight.

First, we should probably talk about Spider Man.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. So Spider Man, the deluxe four minute preview, played this week on, I think it premiered on the, opening night of America’s Got Talent. So

Pete Wright:
Auspicious beginnings. So Because for because as far as I can tell, America does. Got Got Talent. I don’t know if you saw it.

Andy Nelson:
I did not.

Pete Wright:
Got it. I did not, but all the trailers seem to indicate America got it. Alright. So what did you think of the trailer? Give me your honest honest and unvarnished opinion.

Andy Nelson:
Well, you know, I fluctuate with Spider Man because of the

Pete Wright:
because of your deep connection to it.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. I love Spider Man. And, I mean, yes, I love the fact that he’s using his he actually is a science minded kid. He now actually makes his own web shooters, which is cool.

Pete Wright:
You love that, really?

Andy Nelson:
I do, but I never had a problem with it the other way either. And and I know a lot of people did have a problem in the previous films where it was part of his transformation. He actually had, you know, web shooters. That never bothered me, but it does kind of excite me that’s one of the big differences with this one. I always love the lizard and I gotta say, I mean, I’m not seeing a lot of the lizard that is exciting me.

And that to me, is the most concerning thing. And I can’t tell because they’re not showing us enough in the trailer, but it looks like, basically, a giant crocodile running around with, like, a human face on it.

Pete Wright:
Yes. Well, I don’t know if it has a I don’t I think the final transformation, it’s actually just a giant crocodile. I mean I mean, not saying it’s a giant, but it’s the human face is really gone, and that’s the that’s the sad part as far as I can tell.

Andy Nelson:
I just don’t want it to feel like that. What was that? Do you remember that TV movie from the early eighties, where is that crocodile that somebody had released in in the sewers in New York? And it was, like, crawling around, like, eating kids and stuff

Pete Wright:
it like down the toilet.

Andy Nelson:
I love that movie when I was a kid. It scared the crap out of me, but I don’t want this to be that.

Pete Wright:
Yeah. And,

Andy Nelson:
you know, the whole thing with, you know, the cop chasing him instead of don’t know. I mean,

Pete Wright:
there I might be some interesting like the cop. I think the cop is an interesting choice. Just if only because it’s you know, they had to pick some other, you know, some of the characters the characters we’ve gotten used to in the first or the other recent reboots of Spider Man. Yeah. And so that’s you know, they had to do something.

And it’s good to focus on something else. I you know, I like what’s his name?

Andy Nelson:
Denis Leary.

Pete Wright:
Denis Leary, although I’m much more used to him as a fireman. Mm-hmm. But I like that a lot. Okay. So we like the, we like the web shooters.

We, it’s I really like god. His name messes me up. Rhys Ifans? Rhys Ifans?

Andy Nelson:
I think it’s Reese.

Pete Wright:
Rhys Ifans?

Andy Nelson:
I’ve I’ve Rhys Ifans? Ifans.

Pete Wright:
Rhys Ifans? Yeah. I think that’s where he’s he’s most he’s the lizard is most interesting. Those are the pieces I’m most interested. It’s like when he’s in mid transformation, when he looks sort of most compelling.

But once they go full CGI, you’re right, it’s a big crocodile running around the city. I found myself surprisingly moved by watching him take off the mask.

Andy Nelson:
Mm-hmm.

Pete Wright:
At first, I thought that’s because it seems like this is a movie that is strings of scenes of Peter Parker taking off the mask and putting it back on, and then taking it on, then asking other people to put it on, and then taking it back, and then pretending that he didn’t take it off, and that nobody actually knows who he is, or that nobody has a cell phone with a camera on it. So Right. That you know, I thought originally it was just sort of gimmicky, but that the scene in the four minute trailer where you where he rescues the kid from the car, I thought ended up I expected I thought this is a gimmick. This is a gimmick. This is gimmick.

It’s not. It’s dumb. It’s dumb. It’s dumb. And then he the car falls.

He, you know, grabs the kid with his web, and there’s this moment of release and relief, and I was I unexpectedly moved. Yeah. That was a really great scene.

Andy Nelson:
No. I it definitely have its moments. So Yeah. You know, I’m I’m looking forward to it. I’m I’m excited to see it.

And I’m curious to see I think I’m more curious to see how it turns out rather than excited though.

Pete Wright:
Yeah. I think that’s probably true. I think that’s probably true. I think Andrew Garfield is looking, is looking the part more and more. I’m I’m getting more and more used to him, not being Eduardo Saverin that, you know, that’s that’s coming around.

Andy Nelson:
That’s true. Although, I saw a meme running around on Facebook or somewhere saying that, you know, money is the ultimate superpower, and it had a picture of Batman and Eduardo Saverin? Iron Man. Batman and Iron Man. So it’s funny that Eduardo Saverin is playing Spider Man.

Yeah. There you go. Right.

Pete Wright:
Very true. Hey, have we have we actually had a chance to talk about the Avengers?

Andy Nelson:
I haven’t seen it yet. Can you believe that?

Pete Wright:
Are you serious?

Andy Nelson:
I know. I was gonna here’s I was actually going to go see it, but I decided to do some yard work, and I was outside way too long, and I actually ended up getting heat stroke, and I ended up ruining the rest of my day. That pretty much killed You it, I

Pete Wright:
got heat stroke, which stopped you from seeing the Avengers.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. It sounds really

Pete Wright:
bad. I the idea. You live Did in you not see this coming?

Andy Nelson:
Do you wanna know what I was actually doing in my yard? This is the sort of thing you do when you live in the desert and you’re landscaping as rocks. I was vacuuming my rocks. Five hours of vacuuming. Three weeks in a row, I’ve been vacuuming my rocks.

Pete Wright:
Why you can just

Andy Nelson:
kind of you can just blow all the stuff, you know, and it and pile it up and then and rake it up.

Pete Wright:
Wait. Well, okay. Wait. What when you say stuff, what is it?

Andy Nelson:
Leaves from the trees, you know, things.

Pete Wright:
I don’t. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know what would move you to vacuum your front yard.

Andy Nelson:
I don’t know. I have trees that drop all their crap in my yard. There are leaves, these little tiny leaves and they drop seed pods. It’s like all these desert plants that just drop crap everywhere. So and unfortunately, when we moved into this house, the people never had done any of that yard work, and all of that stuff had gotten way down deep in the rocks.

And so it was like a bed, like walking in a forest pine bed is like that kind of thick, and so I had to, like, actually move all the rocks around and, like, vacuum all the crap up. It was abysmal.

Pete Wright:
Gosh, Andy, that sounds really bad.

Andy Nelson:
Oh, yeah. We we should talk about movies now.

Pete Wright:
I don’t know if I wanna go back to movies. I think desert landscaping is far better. Okay. Alright. Okay.

Well, I would like to I don’t wanna give anything away, but I will tell you that I quite liked this film, The Avengers. Hello? Andy? Hello? Hello?

Did you go away? Andy? I did for a minute. You well, you’re back. Can hear me now?

Yeah. Oh, that’s bizarre.

Andy Nelson:
I lost you for a minute.

Pete Wright:
Well, it’s good to hear you again.

Andy Nelson:
Oh, thank you.

Pete Wright:
Alright, so I would like to say that I quite liked this movie. And when I say quite liked, I really, really quite liked it. I don’t want to be too, you know, effervescent? That’s not There’s the a word that goes along with the feeling that I want to convey here. I don’t want to be too excited about it because I’d like you to see it, but I will say that I didn’t have a problem with a single character this film.

Not not one. And and the one that I was most concerned about was Mark Ruffalo as the Hulk, as as Bruce Banner, actually.

Andy Nelson:
Mm-hmm.

Pete Wright:
And I thought he did a great job, and I’ve seen a lot of folks on Twitter who didn’t like him and would prefer the Edward Norton.

Andy Nelson:
Really?

Pete Wright:
The people those days are that ship has sailed. We’re done. We moved on from him and the Australian guy, we’re done.

Andy Nelson:
Entertainment Weekly said that this was the best Hulk that had been out there, that they actually did the best work with it. Not just the CG, but I mean the actual character.

Pete Wright:
Yeah.

Andy Nelson:
They developed him a lot better, and it was much more interesting, and this is one. Because I guess they hadn’t been talking about doing another Hulk movie, but now with this, they actually are, I guess, thinking about it.

Pete Wright:
Well, hope they do, because I think it is a character, and I really feel like Joss Whedon went back to this movie and took it, in some respects, back to its roots from a character perspective. And I think having these characters on the screen together gives them a level of depth, you know, that we haven’t seen before. And in the Hulk franchise to date, it has been a Jekyll and Hyde story, right? Where we’ve had the guy who’s trying to protect the world from the mindless beast within. But the Hulk and the Avengers is not that mindless beast.

He’s he’s, you know, he’s a rage machine, no doubt, but he’s not mindless. And and that’s the important thing. He has there is substance and complexity to this character, and I think they started to bring that out in this movie, and I hope it provides a launch pad for a really substantive Hulk film that actually gets us to something better. I would also love to see a Hawkeye film. I think it would be great to see Hawkeye and Black Widow in their own film.

Think that it would be much more of a Ghost Protocol type of a thing. But I thought it was great. And I love the just the whole dynamic of the film was terrific. Lots of humor. It’s a film that starts and just doesn’t stop.

Mean, it is so well paced and they jam so much into it. The other thing that I really like, then I’m gonna let it go, and you’ll have to tell me what you think about this because this going in, I thought was gonna be the number one challenge when you have all these top build, you know, characters in coming from their own franchises.

Andy Nelson:
Right.

Pete Wright:
And these actors on stage essentially competing for screen time, you know. I didn’t get the feeling that there was any competition for screen time at all. This felt like a real legitimate teen movie.

Andy Nelson:
Interesting. Well, that’s good.

Pete Wright:
Yeah. They did a they did a great job.

Andy Nelson:
That’s hard to do.

Pete Wright:
It’s hard

Andy Nelson:
to pull off.

Pete Wright:
Really hard to do. I walked out of this movie with my kids, and we all three said, should we just go back in and see it again? Nice. So, anyway, that’s it. You want to talk about any other trailers that are hot?

Well, we

Andy Nelson:
haven’t talked about the trailers out for the newsroom.

Pete Wright:
Okay. Give us the thirty second spiel on the newsroom.

Andy Nelson:
Well, I don’t really know a whole lot about it, but just from the trailers that I’ve seen, it’s it’s Aaron Sorkin’s new HBO show, with Jeff Daniels as a, crotchety news anchor for a CNN type of news program, it looks like. Who it looks like he’s kind of finally crossed the line and just can’t handle, dealing with the all the people and idiots that he has to deal with. And He’s assigned a new somebody. I don’t know what that role is in news. What is that?

That she’s a new younger person who’s like helps like a story editor or His producer. Yeah. And he has to deal with her. The head of the news company, looks like he’s played by Jane Fonda, is kind of trying to deal with him and constantly threatening to fire him. And you know, it just looks it’s sharp, it’s got the Sorkin dialogue, and it looks really interesting.

I’m pretty excited to check it out whenever I’m finally able to since I Yeah. Don’t have

Pete Wright:
I’m with you on that. I’m right with you, and I think one of the things that I’m looking forward to the most is I what I have heard is that, you know, this is a Norman Beale story, and with the Aaron Sorkin twist, and it treats the newsroom with great respect. As much as you can actually treat the newsroom with respect, the actual sort of mechanics of working in a newsroom is respected here. I’m really looking forward to that, to, seeing how Aaron Sorkin pulls apart the dynamics of what the broadcast media is going through right now. I’m very excited to see this movie.

I think it’s going be terrific.

Andy Nelson:
It’s a TV show.

Pete Wright:
I mean, t TV show. Yeah. What’s interesting about it is when you’re looking I don’t know how many I don’t know how he’s gonna do it, but it looks like it’s it’s funny because it looks like 10 episodes per series are kind of do or per season. They’re doing it just like they did, you know, Game of Thrones. It’s that short short season.

Andy Nelson:
Right.

Pete Wright:
And weirdly, Jeff Daniels is in eight of them. So, you know, of the Emily Mortimer is, I guess, his playing his She’s the new faithful sidekick producer, and she’s in eight. But there are there are actors who are in 10 episodes, and I’m curious to see how they break apart that story if Oh, so I wonder if

Andy Nelson:
the trailers are really focusing on him right now.

Pete Wright:
Yeah. But there is another story.

Andy Nelson:
There’s gonna be a lot of different it’s gonna be one of those things where we’re watching all these different characters. Right.

Pete Wright:
Right.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. Interesting. One

Pete Wright:
of the let’s see. It’s gosh. What’s her name? Allison Pill. She was in Scott Pilgrim, and she’s in treatment.

She’s been around for a long time, but she looks like she’s seven. She’s in this thing. I always like what she does. She’s been in she’s been acting since 1997, but she really does look like a seven year old.

Andy Nelson:
So Yeah.

Pete Wright:
Well It’s gonna be this is gonna be great. This is gonna be a great great film.

Andy Nelson:
Very exciting. Yeah. I can’t wait. I can’t wait to see it.

Pete Wright:
Series. You know, I would just say if you haven’t seen it, go check out the trailer for Gangster Squad. It’s a new Sean Penn Ryan Gosling film that looks terrific about Mickey Cohen in in the nineteen forties and fifties. And so that looks like a good one. And what did you want to recommend for the week?

Was something else you had in your list.

Andy Nelson:
Argo. Argo. Ben Affleck’s new movie about a guy trying to get some hostages out of or some I guess they’re not hostages. They’re refugees hiding in a in like what country is it? Some Middle Eastern country.

Pete Wright:
Iran? Is

Andy Nelson:
it Iran? Yeah. Yeah. They’re hiding in the Canadian embassy and they he has to go in posing as a film crew with a team of people to try getting these people out pretending that they’re part of the crew.

Pete Wright:
It’s a fascinating trailer with the film stars Ben Affleck, Bryan Cranston, and John Goodman. And it’s got an interesting vibe to it, and I think Ben

Andy Nelson:
Affleck It’s on a true story also, which is, I guess, recently Declassified. Yeah. So that’s pretty interesting.

Pete Wright:
Yeah. So definitely check this one out. It’s it looks like it’s gonna be another another good it’s establishing Ben Affleck as as actually a talent.

Andy Nelson:
We’re gonna have to do a Ben Affleck the Director series.

Pete Wright:
We should. We should do that. There’s there are some that are becoming worth talking about.

Andy Nelson:
There yeah.

Pete Wright:
Alright. Shall we get to the meat of of the

Andy Nelson:
meat? Let’s let’s jump in.

Pete Wright:
So tonight, we start our, our series on Alien. Mm-hmm. And, man, Jonesy. Right? What a dick.

I mean, this whole movie tilted on, you know, I’m on a hiss and a meow. I mean, they probably could’ve gotten away if it weren’t for that cat.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah, that’s true.

Pete Wright:
I think I’d like our entire discussion to revolve around feline interpretation of Alien.

Andy Nelson:
The cat, it’s almost as if it’s purposefully leading them to situations where they get to except for Dallas. That doesn’t really happen with Dallas.

Pete Wright:
But I’m

Andy Nelson:
sure we can find a way to

Pete Wright:
We can do that.

Andy Nelson:
Pin it on Jonesy anyway.

Pete Wright:
Pin it on Jonesy.

Andy Nelson:
You know what’s interesting? It’s funny that you brought Jonesy up right away. This is something that never ever has crossed my mind. But I was listening to some of the commentary on the on the disc from Ridley Scott, and he’s talking about how, you know, how at the end of the film, Ripley comes around the corner and the alien is there. And, she drops Jonesy and runs.

Right?

Pete Wright:
-huh.

Andy Nelson:
Because the alien is blocking her way to the to the escape ship. And, so, she’s gonna go try shutting off the self destruct that she’s initiated.

Pete Wright:
Right.

Andy Nelson:
Right. And then we cut to a shot of the alien looking at Jonesy in in the cage. And in the director’s cut, then the alien actually smacks the cage out of the way. And then we cut to her and we follow her and she doesn’t succeed. And so her only option is to try to get back to the back to the escape ship, which she creeps back up.

The alien’s not there. She sees Jonesy in the cage, grabs Jonesy, and and goes back into, the escape ship. Now it looks like her way is clear, and she ejects as the, Nostromo blows up. At that point, you know, everything seems like it’s going to be nice and calm and we’re at the end of the film and Ridley Scott goes, well, now this is the point where the audience is going to start suspecting the cat, that the cat is, you know, maybe infected with the alien or or has the an alien in it.

Pete Wright:
And I

Andy Nelson:
was like, what? I that never crossed my mind, but I guess I could see that. But I did had that ever crossed your mind that the alien had actually been blown up in the Nostromo and now we’re we’re afraid of the cat?

Pete Wright:
Wow. No. No. I feel now like I’ve somehow been shorted on this movie.

Andy Nelson:
I know. I it never crossed my mind once.

Pete Wright:
No. Never crossed my mind.

Andy Nelson:
Because because I guess the question is why didn’t the alien kill the cat? Maybe the alien knew that the cat had an alien in it or something. You know? I don’t know.

Pete Wright:
Or as is more likely the case, the only thing in the universe that is more terrifying than alien is cat.

Andy Nelson:
Well, anyone who owns a cat knows that’s true.

Pete Wright:
I just got I just got a kitten in our house, and I haven’t slept in a week. And so I think that’s where we’re going. I so why are we why is why is Alien such an important franchise?

Andy Nelson:
This is a film that, I think, really took everybody by surprise when it was released in ’79, because it did something different with sci fi, and it did something different with horror that people hadn’t really seen before. And it really, really took people by surprise in a way that advanced both of those genres in new and different ways. And I think that’s what really that’s why we like this story so much is that by blending those two genres, not just, you know, in kind of a cursory way, but really blending them where you had a very atmospheric sci fi film that was absolutely terrifying with things that you’ve never seen before, like chest bursters bursting out of people and these these creepy like crab like face huggers implanting embryos in them and this then of course the alien with like, you know, this giant phallic head and this tongue with teeth and just everything about it is just horrifying. It’s it wasn’t anything that had seen before, and it was able to advance, you know, everything after that in both sci fi and and horror films. And I think that’s why it’s it’s such an important film in my mind.

Pete Wright:
Well, alright. Alright. I’ll go with that. That’s my answer too. I think, I think it’s an interesting movie because it’s a movie that celebrates specific beats.

Even celebrates, celebrates not even the word. It’s a movie where the pacing is determined by these beats that are worshipped in the film. Right? When they discover the first alien ship, right, and the Sea of Eggs, when John Hurt goes to the Sea of Eggs, that moment is it is a stunning moment, Right? When the alien bursts forth from the egg and attaches itself to John Hurt’s face, it is a stunning moment.

And it’s a moment that you don’t you don’t forget. This is a film where these moments are seared somehow to your sort of to your memory, and and I think that’s a really powerful bit. I mean, are few movies that have those moments that really really have that kind of power, and this movie has a lot of them. Yeah. And and it really kinda corners the market how on these moments propel the story forward.

And and it’s because you have to admit, what happens between these moments, it’s just kind of a lot of talking. You know? And then the heartbeat starts.

Andy Nelson:
But that speaks to how well it’s paced. Exactly.

Pete Wright:
Oh, yeah. No, it’s exactly I mean,

Andy Nelson:
you say a lot of talking, I mean, that’s, you know, it’s there’s a lot there is stuff going on there, and obviously, in order to have those great moments where the

Pete Wright:
Yeah.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. Chest bursts or rips out of his chest at dinner, you know, before, you know, and then Dallas later is killed in the air ducts. You know, having those moments between obviously makes the tension in those that much stronger.

Pete Wright:
Well, as a testament to that, you know, the scene that, you know, I remembered most as a kid now and I saw this movie. Let’s see. Do you happen to know off the top of your head when it was released on VHS? Do you have that? No.

I do not have it handy. It was really released on VHS. Well, anyway, so I saw it when it came out. My my or actually, my dad had it on beta in the early eighties. Yeah.

Whenever that was. And he and a buddy came in and they closed the door in his bedroom and they sat on my parents’ bed and watched this movie on their tiny television in closed door fashion and I was very concerned by it. So I laid down on the floor and I watched the movie under the crack of the door with I’ll one never forget it because I saw the chest bursting scene.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah.

Pete Wright:
And that scene so that scene was really sort of bookmarked the entire film for me. And so after I’ve seen it many, many times, I still remember that scene. And that scene doesn’t come in the film until exactly the halfway point of the film. Yeah. Which seems late to me because it really propels the entire bottom half of the movie.

But but structurally, it comes really late. And yet, that’s the thing that I remember the most. I remember that launching the film.

Andy Nelson:
Mm-hmm. Well, and and a lot of that is because, you know, they deliberately wanted a pace for the first half of the film that was much slower and not a whole lot happened because it’s building up the tension. It’s it’s creating this environment where we’re we’re getting a sense of these things and and finding ourselves in a world where things, you know, are moving at the pace they normally move at, but when we’re introduced to this alien landscape and everything else on that alien landscape, it just creates that unsettled feeling. And even though, you know, we don’t have something jumping out at us every ten minutes, it’s still, it’s like that tension is almost just like it keeps building. It’s like a slow burn almost, you know, it just kind of keeps going.

So man, when that chest burst or scene happens, it’s something that you never see coming.

Pete Wright:
Where do you tell tell tell me what you think of this yahoo, Dan O’Bannon.

Andy Nelson:
He’s a he’s a kooky guy. Dan O’Bannon.

Pete Wright:
You just he’s just a guy you just imagine you don’t wanna I mean, he’s he’s he passed away, but you don’t ever wanna give him a shotgun and an and a porch, because he’ll guard that thing till the bitter end.

Andy Nelson:
He’s he’s an interesting guy. He is very quirky. He’s a very quirky guy. He started he started working with John Carpenter back at in film school on Dark Star until they finished it out of school. And from that, you know, his excitement about doing a sci fi sort of thing kind of led him to continue on and start writing Alien.

He couldn’t really get it to where he wanted, so he brought his buddy Ronald Shusett on, and they kind of crafted this script together. Ronald Shusett is the one who actually came up with the chestburster I’m sorry, not the chestburster idea. He came up with the maybe no. He did come up with the whole chest burster face hugger thing and how the face hugger attaches it and, you know, basically, you know, implants itself in you. I mean, I think he used a more sexual connotation as to what it was actually doing.

It and it embeds an egg in you that then bursts forth. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Dan O’Bannon is suspender, bow tie wearing guy.

Pete Wright:
He is, you know, he’s behind some of the properties that I have been really attached to, for a long, long time. And, you know, I didn’t I don’t remember much of of his very first kind of works, you know, Dark Star and, you know, a long trial. But he was on the team for Star Wars, did some special computer effects in Star Wars, and then we got Alien, Heavy Metal, Dead and Buried, Blue Thunder was one of my favorites. I think according to what I read, didn’t like that very much and thought the rewrites were extracted a lot of the political content from the movie. I thought it was one of my favorites.

Life Force was a movie I absolutely loved. It was a complete box office flop but I loved it. Alien Vampires, you just got there’s

Andy Nelson:
It was a weird one. It was great.

Pete Wright:
Return of the Living Dead, and I’ll be damned, the original Total Recall that I was lamenting several weeks ago.

Andy Nelson:
And that’s actually a project that he and Ronald Shusett said had actually been working on since before Alien. And ended up Alien just ended up happening first. You know, he’s an interesting writer because he actually got himself somehow because he had gone he had been hired for a period of time to actually go to Europe and work on an adaptation of Dune that never actually ended up happening. But while he was there, he went to this show, an art show, and that’s where he first encountered H. R.

Giger’s work. And and because of that, he brought Giger on and helped kind of create that whole, you know, alien look that is so famous now. And because of that, he ended up becoming like the visual consultant for Alien and Ridley Scott very much relied on him to be there much to the producer’s lament. They really didn’t like him. There was quite a bit of animosity between, Giler and Hill with Dan O’Bannon because they didn’t want him they didn’t want the writer on set.

Also, there was the issue of who wrote the script because Giler and Hill, O’Bannon had actually come when they were doing pre production. He he saw a copy of the script laying there and his name wasn’t even on it. It had it was now written by David Giler and Walter Hill. And he was like, what’s going on here? And, yeah.

So it went through arbitration with the Writers Guild, he and, Ron ended up getting, shared story credit, and then Dan O’Bannon got screenplay credit. And then, you know, there is definite work in there from David Giler and Walter Hill. Most notably, they came up with the whole idea of Ash being the robot.

Pete Wright:
Which ended up being pretty critical Oh, yeah. In in terms of the overall arc of the of the film.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. Was a very important point. But, you know, because of all that, it’s there’s definitely a lot of animosity between all of these guys.

Pete Wright:
Too bad they can’t just play together. Yeah. Well, he’s dead now, so what are you gonna do? Right?

Andy Nelson:
That’s right.

Pete Wright:
Alright. So, you know, what’s I think it took me a long time to actually understand what was going on in the story. Is it important to really understand what is going on in the story?

Andy Nelson:
Well, in what sense are you talking about as far as the

Pete Wright:
Well, and and maybe it’s because I now have the benefit of having seen the trailer for Prometheus. Mm-hmm. Right? But I get the I get the feeling that there was more sort of backstory in here that is not in the film, and the role of this sort of alien prime that we are to assume was also destroyed by the alien.

Andy Nelson:
You’re you’re referring to the space jockey?

Pete Wright:
Yes. Yeah. The space jockey.

Andy Nelson:
You know, they never actually the whole concept that they had was it was a mystery. They never really figure they never designed it in a way where they had backstory for that. Ridley Scott had his own theory as to what that was. And actually, I’ll be curious, not having read Prometheus, not knowing anything about it other than what’s in the trailer, I’m curious as to what Prometheus how it’s going to play out because what he came up with and what he talks about in the commentary about this is that this was a, perhaps, cargo ship and like a military cargo ship and this space jockey was piloting it and in the cargo holds were basically all of these alien eggs that they would then drop on a planet and use as a biological warfare to kind of clean up a planet or something like that. However, one of them got jarred, escaped, and attached to him, and that was the end of him.

That was kind of what Ridley’s theory was while they were making Alien. So I’m curious how it’s going

Pete Wright:
to be. Don’t wanna talk about

Andy Nelson:
I know. I don’t want you to say anything.

Pete Wright:
This is gonna be challenging to do. Okay. So, let’s talk about the seminal moments. Well, first of all, let’s talk about Giger.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. This film would not be anything without HR Giger. An amazing, very quirky artist, very quirky artist who, draws just these horribly disturbing images that, you know, I mean, they all kind of look this way. It’s like biomechanical sexual combinations of, like, monsters and people and teeth and machines and just everything has kind of this sexual overtone to it. Very creepy stuff.

And Ridley Scott saw this stuff and was like, that is what I want. And he ended up, you know, once he saw it, he knew this is exactly what this monster needs to be. This is how the ships need to be. Like, he was a 100% convinced. And then Ridley Scott had to work to convince everyone else that this I mean, not everyone.

Everyone at the at twentieth Century Fox, the producers and everyone, that this would actually work. And I don’t think they had seen it that way, but, you know, he went out, and good for him because he was right.

Pete Wright:
Well, enough to double the budget, the initial film’s budget, which ended up being what did it come out to? What does your backroom secret budget number look like? It looks like to me at 8,400,000.

Andy Nelson:
I see between 9 and 11 are the numbers I have.

Pete Wright:
So

Andy Nelson:
So somewhere between 9 and 11,000,000 and $19.78 dollars is when it was made, so.

Pete Wright:
So not bad. Not a bad chunk of change, but but still, you have to admit, this is a ton of movie for that budget. This is a ton of movie. And I’m just you know what I’m looking I’m clicking. I’m getting a little bit lost because I’m looking for the original art inspiration for this piece was Giger’s Necronom IV.
Necronom IV. Yeah. And if you look at the image, can see just how just what a sort of asexual piece it is and and and how close they ended up sticking to the to the original piece for the alien model. And you can really see when we talk next week about aliens, the parallel there that even even, I think, cemented the parallel when it comes to the queen. Mm-hmm.

They took it even that next step further. So really, Giger’s story sort of defined how, what you said earlier, how this film really pushed science fiction and horror in new direction. And it was largely the result of the artistic impressions of Giger that helped take that to a new level of sort of sobriety, don’t you think?

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. Because it created something, I mean, I know there had been like aliens and things in other movies dating all the way back to the beginning of cinema, but they weren’t looked at as anything so, it all seemed to kinda still fit within kind of our fairytale version of what what that would be. You know? It was like modified people.

Pete Wright:
Mm-hmm.

Andy Nelson:
And, yes, the alien is a modified person, but not in a way anyone had ever done before. It was just it really made it like an alien. I mean, it has acid for blood. The life cycle is something that, you know, nobody had ever really thought about that in other films before. And that whole concept of laying an egg inside a person, I mean, it’s just stuff that nobody had seen and done.

And yeah, it was wholly original.

Pete Wright:
Well, I think that, you know, when you add the emphasis on the horror and the structure of the script, it’s it is not just what you’re saying, which is, you know, I think absolutely true, that you’ve you’ve never seen the kind of of Alien, you’ve never seen the kind of production design that’s inspired, and you’ve never really seen a cast as as sort of dirty and talented as this one taking what they’re doing quite so seriously.

Andy Nelson:
Mm-hmm.

Pete Wright:
Right? I mean, this was very much not a fantasy film. This was not this was people as you know, this was no Star Wars.

Andy Nelson:
Right. Completely different.

Pete Wright:
And and they came out in such proximity to one another that parallel is very real. I mean, is almost a response. This is the anti Star Wars.

Andy Nelson:
It is in a very real way. I mean, Ridley Scott had no intention of doing a sci fi. This was his second film after The Duelists. Mm-hmm. And he was intending on going and making a film out of Tristan and Isolde.

And then somebody told him, hey, you’ve gotta come see this. They went out and then watched Star Wars. And he’s just like, oh my god. That’s what I have to do next. And and somehow, he got tapped into doing a sci fi film.

And, know, he just realized that was kind of what the whole the zeitgeist was. You know, he wasn’t gonna be this kind of artsy, you know, European director. He needed to do something that was really connecting with with audiences. And but he also never was a fan of science fiction films. And so, I think that is another reason that he pushed it in a in so many different directions opposite Star Wars.

Pete Wright:
Yeah. I think that’s a I think that’s an interesting parallel. And and, you know, to it of jumps out at me that the movies that we’ve talked about are there other movies we talked about where the directors were not specifically fans of the subject matter? What immediately comes to mind is Facebook, or is the social network, where the principal folks were not members of Facebook and not interested in technology, including the writer, and yet come up with this fantastic film. And there’s this one, and I’m trying to figure out is there a is there another list we need to make?

Of the movies we like list of directors that actually hate their subject matter.

Andy Nelson:
But make a great film.

Pete Wright:
But make great films anyway. Alright. So put that on our list of lists that we’re gonna need to make.

Andy Nelson:
Yes. The list of lists.

Pete Wright:
Let’s let’s run down the cast quickly because the cast is really exceptionally strong. We remember this as, you know, as sort of a I don’t know, I wanna call it a vehicle for Sigourney Weaver.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. I mean, her first film, I mean, her lead role in a film. I believe she had been in Manhattan as an extra before this, but this is really pretty much her first film, so or not Manhattan, Annie Hall, yeah.

Pete Wright:
But, you know, I think what’s interesting about that is that her part is not you know, you can sort of see how this was not made to make her look good.

Andy Nelson:
Interestingly, all of the roles in the script originally, they wrote a note that said, any of these, these are written asexually. Any of them could be a man played by a man or a woman. And so over time, the studio decided, okay. Let’s do these two characters. And I don’t think it was Ripley, but then somebody said, no, no, let’s do let’s do Ripley as a female.

And that was another new thing that they were doing with this film is pushing a female protagonist into the lead in this type of film.

Pete Wright:
So Well, and that’s I think is an interesting That’s an interesting twist. I’m trying to imagine what it would have been like, say, if swapped Tom Skerritt

Andy Nelson:
Mm-hmm.

Pete Wright:
As Ripley. It makes for a very it makes for a different vibe no matter kind of how you write the character. But my point was, it was written so far as we remember it as a vehicle for her because Aliens was such a vehicle for her, where she was definitely the star. And in this movie, I don’t feel like she was the star, just because she was the lone survivor.

Andy Nelson:
Well, and I think that was the I mean, I always felt like that was the intention with the script, is casting people who had much bigger names that you expected to be the ones who would survive Mm-hmm. Around her. And then, it’s this unknown newcomer who is the one who ends up being the one who is the lone survivor at the end.

Pete Wright:
For example, John Hurt.

Andy Nelson:
Mm-hmm.

Pete Wright:
Who was already legendary, even at this point. I mean, John Hurt had been around for a very long time and is a terrific actor and he ends up being one of the first to go.

Andy Nelson:
And he almost wasn’t in this film. Alright. So go on. Talk about this. He he was interested in being in it, but he was heading out of the country to be in a movie in South Africa.

And so they cast another actor, and and I’m blanking on his name right now.

Pete Wright:
John Finch.

Andy Nelson:
John Finch. Thank you. John Finch, they started shooting with him, and it was like the very first shot, the very first day. And and Ridley Scott looked at him and said, are you doing okay? And he’s like, no.

I feel horrible. And he ended up having bronchitis or something, like, was horribly ill. And that kind of was it with John Finch. He had to they had to cut him because he was too ill to work. And oddly enough, John Hurt ended up being available because this South Africa film he was gonna go work on, there was a problem.

They wouldn’t let him in the country because they mistook him for somebody else who was a big anti apartheid guy. And so he couldn’t get into South Africa, so he was free. And lo and behold, he he had a late night meeting with Ridley Scott and who said, look. We want you. And 7AM the next morning, he was on set ready to film.

Pete Wright:
What a fantastic coup that is.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. And I couldn’t picture anyone else playing him, so thank god.

Pete Wright:
Well, I couldn’t picture anyone else playing him. And to end you know, what his this is one of those cases where specifically the actor makes the performance here because this is to watching him and not just his his dramatic performance, you know, wandering through the eggs, but watching him die. Makes the moment. And watching them watch him die makes the moment. And particularly the story as I understand it, and tell me when I start lying, is the rest of the characters during the chest bursting scene had been told that the alien was going to burst through the chest, but had not been told the degree to which the gore was going to explode from the chest.

Yeah. And the sounds that they were going to be hearing. As a result, when the gore and the chicken eviscera comes shooting out of the dummy half of John Hurt, which was on the table, What you’re seeing there when everything goes silent for about a half a second, is the real unvarnished reaction of these people having never seen this before.

Andy Nelson:
Right. Right. Particularly, what’s her name? I’m having a terrible time tonight. Veronica Cartwright.

Cartwright. Who who got blasted in the face with a geyser of blood. And and you can see her, she just I mean, it’s this huge burst of blood just like squirts her right in the face. She freaks out. She actually steps back.

She she totally slips in it, like, goes head over heels onto the floor. They’re still filming, so she scrambles back up and still is reacting. Poor girl. But, yeah, I mean, there was just so much blood and nobody was expecting it. It really worked.

Was very effective and horrifying.

Pete Wright:
It was horrifying. And she provides it’s almost a Wilhelm Scream moment. Know what I mean? Like, when the alien is there, it’s a close-up on the alien kind of uncoiling in his chest cavity, and you hear her say, oh god. And it’s I swear I’ve heard that in, like, a thousand movies since then, you know.

It’s that’s the scream, but it’s I can’t confirm that.

Andy Nelson:
Oh, that’s so funny.

Pete Wright:
Ian Holm as Ash, the ship’s science officer.

Andy Nelson:
Mm-hmm.

Pete Wright:
The malfunctioning android.

Andy Nelson:
Another another kudos moment that surprised everybody, and and, you know, if if people weren’t getting sick in the aisles from the chestburster scene, it was when Yaphet Kotto’s character, Parker, smacks Ash in the head with the fire extinguisher, and his head rips off.

Pete Wright:
Yeah.

Andy Nelson:
And he’s still alive and he’s he’s

Pete Wright:
in Spaghettis and and marble spaghetti and marbles hanging out of his head. That was a that was a horrifying moment where it is that the that ushers in the audience, fainted during the initial screenings. A terrific performance from Ian Holm, I think it is you know, I think it’s one of those that, again, sort of pushes the android role in science fiction from the definitive robot that we had seen prior to the sort of you can’t tell kind of android performance that actually leads to enough of the movies to come after it that actually have this as the philosophical of linchpin of the film. What does it mean when we have artificial intelligence that we’re interacting with? And this movie, I think, was part of the shift there, pushing that theme forward in Yeah.

Andy Nelson:
And it’s it’s a very interesting perspective when you start all of a sudden, now you’re not just scared of the alien, but who else do I need to be scared of? Right. You know? Because this Android for all, you know, essentially is just an element of the company that is, you know, ready to bring the alien home. All crew are expendable.

It doesn’t the alien sorry, the android doesn’t care at all.

Pete Wright:
Exactly. That was a that’s an incredibly horrifying moment in this movie, in a movie full of horrifying moments. And this one, when you actually terrified by what you’re reading on the screen after the things you’ve already seen, is really a testament to the thriller aspect and the suspense that they’ve been able to build. You know, I think the other Yaphet Kotto was terrific. Harry Dean Stanton was absolutely terrific.

This is his jowls hadn’t dropped quite as much as I as I imagined him here. He was the young and jowl less Harry Dean Stanton as Brett.

Andy Nelson:
And they both play like the gear heads, the, you know, the guys doing all the repairs in the bottom. They play that so well. Both those two.

Pete Wright:
I wanna, talk a little bit about the sound of

Andy Nelson:
this film.

Pete Wright:
Are you are you are you ready to talk about sound?

Andy Nelson:
I’m ready.

Pete Wright:
The sound is amazing in this movie. Yeah. It’s amazing in this movie. And you can tell I mean, it’s just about as raw as you could come. I mean, the sounds of the gurgling of the just the sort of mucus gurgling in the egg and the water dripping is constantly there, and they use that trick with the speeding up heartbeat.

You know, in just about the most important suspense scenes in the film and the horror scenes in the film. Even today, how many times have I seen that chest burst? Before we started recording, I was watching that scene again with my wife, and we were both holding onto each other’s arms while we were watching this. And so much of that is driven by the incredible attention to sound and bringing forward those sound effects that you just don’t often hear to the point where you can comment on them. Yeah.

Andy Nelson:
Think? I do think it’s genius. I think they’re amazing use of sound and knowing when to emphasize sounds, when to not emphasize sounds, and when to and when silence can also be used in a really horrifying way. Like, I find it so unnerving when the face burster the face burster, sorry, the face hugger first jumps out of the egg and attaches itself to I blank out everyone’s names tonight.

Pete Wright:
To John Hurt’s character?

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. To Kane. Yeah. It attaches itself to Kane. And then instantly and it’s it’s a very tense moment.

It’s scary. And with all the sound of that thing springing out, and you hear that whip like tail, and then it cuts

Pete Wright:
Mm-hmm.

Andy Nelson:
To the exterior of the spaceship, and it’s just dead silence. And there’s no music. There’s nothing. It’s just like the environment that you’re in, and it’s you feel all of a sudden so tiny. You know?

It’s such an interesting way to play that scene where the silence, for me at least, just really enhances this tension where I just feel, something so horrifying is happening. And it’s it’s such an insignificant speck on this massive rock that they’re stuck on. It just it’s terrifying.

Pete Wright:
It is absolutely terrifying. The last this one of the pieces that I think was so effective when Cartwright’s character and Yaphet Kotto are being killed. Mm-hmm. And it’s cutting back and forth between Sigourney Weaver running through the ship. Mm-hmm.

You the scream you can hear the screams occasionally, but they are not in sync with the with what you’re seeing on screen. It’s like the sound is completely sort of disjointed, and and it’s it’s really driven by that sort of low of the and the throb of the ship, the lights, and the emergency sounds, and the gas, and the humanity is kind of taken out of it through sound. Mm-hmm. And I think that ends up being another really powerful metaphor for what is happening on the ship, that humanity is sort of being erased. And they do that all through audio, which ends up being a really powerful motif.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. And you brought up the ending, that’s another thing. It’s so terrifying when the ship goes into its countdown to self destruct. And you just have sirens blurring everywhere. You’ve got the overheating gas spraying out everywhere.

It’s just this bed of sound that it just, all of it makes you just so uncomfortable and claustrophobic in that environment. And it works so well for this, you know, what everyone kind of says, you know, like a haunted house movie, you know, you’re trapped in this house trying to get out, and it’s it’s terrifying because there’s it just keeps building.

Pete Wright:
It does. It’s it’s really fantastic. So the movie, we’ve been going on a long time about this movie, but I feel like, gosh, we could talk about it much longer. What else stands out to you that you have on your list?

Andy Nelson:
I wanna talk about the music because I addition to the sound, I think the music for this film is so top notch, and it’s it’s so well done and horrifying. It you just don’t get better than this, particularly for this genre, this type of film. It just it’s it’s so creepy. This is

Pete Wright:
the good Jerry Goldsmith.

Andy Nelson:
Jerry Goldsmith, one of the one of the great j’s of composing is what I like to put him on the list of Js.

Pete Wright:
Sure. But, you know, it is not necessarily true that, you know, you don’t have to have a J name to be a cinema composer, but But it helps. But you likely will.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. There’s, you know, James James, Jerry Jerry Yeah. Joe, John John John John John. There’s all the J’s.

Pete Wright:
There’s a lot of All the primary J’s.

Andy Nelson:
All, like, great composers. What can I say? But Jerry and Ridley so Jerry Jerry composed an amazing score for this film. What ended up happening is there was quite a bit of contention, however, because the editor chopped up his music, essentially used it almost like stock music, like library music that they pulled in instead of putting it where Jerry had composed it for. He used it however he wanted and found things and just put things in.

In addition to pulling stuff from, you know, when they built their temp track score, he used this is before Jerry had finished, so they found a bunch of other Jerry Goldsmith music and laid that in. A number of pieces were from a film he had done a few years earlier called Freud, about Sigmund. And they liked a couple of those pieces so much that they opted to just buy the rights to them and use them instead of the music that Jerry had composed. So, you know, there’s a lot of arguing and Jerry was pissed and he’s a hot headed guy anyway. And so it ended up not being a great experience for him.

And if you listen to the original score that he composed, and and there’s an incredible release of the Alien score. The original score, the revisions he made, the soundtrack he originally released, done by Intrada that we should, we should link. It’s a great example of what happens to film music. But regardless, the way that they ended up using it still works really well. So even if it wasn’t the way that he the composer had originally intended, it still is a masterful score, and it’s so horrifying.

He uses, you know, this instrument. I guess it’s an instrument. It’s called an Echoplex. Have you ever heard of that?

Pete Wright:
I’ve never heard of an Echoplex.

Andy Nelson:
An Echoplex is a device it’s it’s a device, I guess, that you use with instruments. And what you do is it basically makes it echo. He’d used it when he did the music for Patton. When you hear the, like

Pete Wright:
Mm-hmm.

Andy Nelson:
And and it just takes what you play, and it just creates an echo of it. And so he used this Echoplex on all these really funky instruments. Like, there’s an instrument called a serpent. It’s like a big horn instrument that was one of the instruments he used for the alien and the didgeridoo. He used different conch shells all with this Echoplex to kind of create these alien sounds.

And like timpani’s, he played them on their metal sides. He played like piano keys with triangle mallets and glockenspiels with rubber hammers and like all this crazy stuff that it just it amazes me that composer goes to such lengths to find such unique instruments that create that alien sound that, you know, he was really trying to convey in this film. And I swear, I don’t for this type of film, like I said, I don’t think it has its equal.

Pete Wright:
I yeah, I don’t think so. This one, again, it’s, you know, insofar as it pushed, this film pushed those boundaries for science fiction and horror, I think the score did the same and opened the door. You know, you can see the direct lineage between this score and Trent Reznor, for example, And that same sort of stylistic choices and the funky instruments and, you know, using music to tell a story in parallel to the film and to the visuals, I think that ends up being a very powerful partnership, not just something to play over the silence.

Andy Nelson:
Well, and it’s interesting because I think, Trent Reznor really wrote his music designed in a way where David Fincher could pull it however he wanted and use it where he felt best. Mm-hmm. Like, almost designed it with that, stock music mentality where I’m going to create a bunch of moods and you put it where you think works best, which is a great it’s a great way to compose, I guess, if if you’re not trying to create a solid thematic idea that’s kind of moving from one end of the film to the other. And, you know, I think what happens in in the film as it is in Alien is masterful. It’s a beautiful score.

It’s haunting. But if you listen to the actual original soundtrack, you can actually hear how there was something actually moving across. There’s themes in there and everything, and and they cut a lot of that out. You know, you miss that, but it still it still is pretty damn effective.

Pete Wright:
Talk a little bit about the difference between the director’s cut, the 2003 release, and the original.

Andy Nelson:
Well, it’s interesting because Ridley Scott doesn’t even really count the 2003 rerelease as a director’s cut. He actually says that if there is a director’s cut, it’s the ’79 version because he felt that it works so well. He doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with it, and he’s very happy with it. The 2003 version, however, he wanted to, you know or maybe perhaps twentieth Century Fox marketing people wanted him to create a version that they could, you know, get it back out in the world and remarket it. He basically wanted to add some stuff in, and he ended up actually, I think, adding four minutes of new material and removing five minutes of material.

So it’s actually a minute shorter than the original cut. I and I haven’t figured out what has been taken out of it, But things that have been added, the biggest thing is toward the end of the film when, Ripley is heading to, shut the, self destruct off, she comes across a chamber that the alien had been using. And it actually is very kind of reminiscent of what you see in aliens. It’s got all that kind of that gooey H. R.

Giger growth all over the walls. Mm-hmm. And embedded on the wall is Dallas, who’s actually still alive. And, next to him is what’s left of Brett that the alien has basically kind of coated in the goo and is actually using his body to create an egg. From that egg eventually will be a face hugger who will attach itself to Dallas, and that’s how it would continue.

So it was an interesting egg chamber thing to discover in the in the particular in this particular scene. It does slow it down a little bit when she discovers it. And in retrospect, if you look at that and then you look at aliens, it kind of takes away the queen a little bit. You know? Mm-hmm.

Think that’s the biggest problem with that particular scene. But it still is interesting. And then they add a few other little scenes like the crew when they get the SOS signal actually, like, trying to track it and figure out where it’s coming from. There’s a great scene when the crew is first back on the ship with Kane being examined in the medical room. You see them looking at him through the window.

And Lambert is standing there watching. Ripley comes down the hall and this is you know, remember, this is fresh after Ripley would not let them back on board. Right. And and Lambert walks up to her and just gives her the biggest smack across the face. She’s so pissed at her.

So, you know, it’s it’s just little things like that. It’s not a huge difference, and it’s fun to watch both, but they’re not that different.

Pete Wright:
Well, that is, I think, in contrast to the director’s cut of Aliens, which we will talk about next week. Yeah. And that was definitely much more of a substantive release. Definitely. You know, wrapping up, how would you how would you summarize, you know, your take on this film and why it’s on our list of movies we like?

Andy Nelson:
It’s, you know, it’s just it’s an amazing film that stands the test of time. It’s just a fantastic horror film, sci fi horror that works to this day. It still is just creepy and everything in it works so well. Nothing feels dated. It just it has that Ridley Scott atmosphere that I think never I mean, there are a few of his films where the atmosphere is there, but it still feels dated.

Black Rain comes to mind. Mm-hmm. But this one just it feels like it could have been made, you know, any time in the last thirty years. I mean, any of there’s there’s nothing pinpointing it to ’79.

Pete Wright:
No, you know, think that’s a good point, which may only be true for another four weeks. And we’ll see, we’ll see just as how well that Prometheus completely breaks what you just said.

Andy Nelson:
Right, exactly.

Pete Wright:
When is your debut as a columnist contributor in Entertainment Weekly scheduled to start?

Andy Nelson:
Well, theoretically, tomorrow. Oh, excellent. Today, I guess, when people are listening. Today.

Pete Wright:
Look at Letters to Entertainment Weekly, Letters to EW.

Andy Nelson:
That’s right. Theoretically, I’ve got a little something in there about Prometheus.

Pete Wright:
We’ll see. So we’ll let that hang. Put a pin in it, baby.

Andy Nelson:
Yes, indeed, indeed.

Pete Wright:
I think this movie is such a perfect addition to this list and to this series just because it kicks off what has become a series that is culturally important. It is something that defines the structure of how horror and science fiction films that come after it are structured, and it adds really interesting techniques to that gestalt. It’s a fun film to watch again and again. To be able to pull it apart like this is always fun to do. And not to mention the fact that all of the effects are so wonderfully practical and they all use chickens.

That conjures up all sorts of horrible things. You thought GMO was bad people.

Andy Nelson:
Wait till

Pete Wright:
you see what Ridley Scott can do to a chicken.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. For the face burst or a face burster. God. The face hugger, when they’re actually dissecting it, it’s like organ like, all these organs from, like, sturgeon, and chicken, it’s like all these gross things. It’s really I can only imagine how it smelled on set.

Pete Wright:
I haven’t done research for a film that uses the word eviscera more frequently. And so in this scene, the eviscera was spread about.

Andy Nelson:
Even Giger, he would truck in carcasses to use in the construction of the sets. And he had actually, I guess, requested dry bones to use, and they got a truckload of all these wet, meaty bones, and he said it smelled so bad. I can only imagine. Wow, that is like, there’s some interesting stuff going on where you’re building a whole set out of animal bones.

Pete Wright:
Oh my goodness. Well, it’s a fantastic film. Very much looking forward to the, really the departure that Aliens takes next week. And, until that, I got nothing else.

Andy Nelson:
I don’t either. It’s good stuff. It’s good stuff. Good stuff.

Pete Wright:
Mm-hmm. Good night, Andy.